The Story — don't feed the coyotes

'don't feed the coyotes' was filmed across San Francisco from 2017 through 2021.
This is Scout. She was three years-old when filming began and living atop this grassy hill in the heart of San Francisco.
Janet Kessler, who gave Scout her name, is a self-taught naturalist who's been observing, photographing and writing about San Francisco's urban coyotes for more than a decade.
Jonathan Young and David Harelson monitor and manage wildlife at the Presidio, a sprawling national park on the city's northern edge. It's in this capacity that coyote management has fallen on their shoulders. Through their work, we follow a territorial battle over some prime coyote habitat.
In the early 1900s, the state of California paid a $5 bounty for dead coyotes (as was common for many predators like wolves and mountain lions). By design, this lead to their extirpation from rapidly growing urban areas across the state.
Over the next century, public sentiment towards wildlife (and predators in particular) slowly shifted. So too did state laws protecting wildlife. By the early 2000s, coyotes began returning to many of the places they'd lived for millennia - including San Francisco's green spaces like Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and Land's End
And it wasn't just in San Francisco. Cities across the country, from Los Angeles and Seattle to Chicago and New York, have all seen coyote populations within their limits.
The animals generally stay in wooded areas and away from people. When compelled by their basic needs like food and water or the search for territory or a mate, they'll venture through urban areas. While they often do so at night, coyotes are not nocturnal by nature. Night is simply the best time to avoid humans, our dogs and our cars.
Despite the increased overlap, coyote attacks on humans are exceedingly rare. When they do occur, coyotes habituated to human feeding are often the transgressors.
Conflicts between coyotes and humans or domestic dogs are also much more frequent around den areas and during pupping season, which runs from early spring into the fall.
The advice from experts for a coyote encounter is simple: appreciate them from a distance. Leash your dog. If they move towards you, slowly walk away. If necessary, scare them off by making loud noises. And please don't feed them...
To learn more from the participants, see their work online at: presidio.gov, coyoteyipps.com & mecu.ucdavis.edu

'don't feed the coyotes' was filmed across San Francisco from 2017 through 2021.

This is Scout. She was three years-old when filming began and living atop this grassy hill in the heart of San Francisco.

Janet Kessler, who gave Scout her name, is a self-taught naturalist who's been observing, photographing and writing about San Francisco's urban coyotes for more than a decade.

Jonathan Young and David Harelson monitor and manage wildlife at the Presidio, a sprawling national park on the city's northern edge. It's in this capacity that coyote management has fallen on their shoulders. Through their work, we follow a territorial battle over some prime coyote habitat.

In the early 1900s, the state of California paid a $5 bounty for dead coyotes (as was common for many predators like wolves and mountain lions). By design, this lead to their extirpation from rapidly growing urban areas across the state.

And it wasn't just in San Francisco. Cities across the country, from Los Angeles and Seattle to Chicago and New York, have all seen coyote populations within their limits.

Despite the increased overlap, coyote attacks on humans are exceedingly rare. When they do occur, coyotes habituated to human feeding are often the transgressors.

Conflicts between coyotes and humans or domestic dogs are also much more frequent around den areas and during pupping season, which runs from early spring into the fall.

The advice from experts for a coyote encounter is simple: appreciate them from a distance. Leash your dog. If they move towards you, slowly walk away. If necessary, scare them off by making loud noises. And please don't feed them...

To learn more from the participants, see their work online at: presidio.gov, coyoteyipps.com & mecu.ucdavis.edu